


In the kitchen of a keep in the mountains

by ArtanisNaanie



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Apparently I can't write Jaskier without writing angst, Character Study, Food, Found Family, Gen, Happy Ending, How to feed seven people for four months in an isolated decrepit castle, Hunting, Internal Monologue, Kaer Morhen, M/M, Medieval Cuisine, No potatoes, Plot what plot/Food without plot, Recipes, Tags May Change, The author is nerding about medieval preserving and cooking methods, There was no plot but then there was Jaskier, There's no plot just people cooking, This is not a vegetarian fic, Where there's meat there were animals, Winter At Kaer Morhen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25910944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArtanisNaanie/pseuds/ArtanisNaanie
Summary: Kaer Morhen was never supposed to be a home.Food was never supposed to be comfort.Things don't always go as they're supposed to.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 83
Kudos: 185





	1. Vesemir

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if this experiment of a fic will interest anyone, but it's mostly a self-indulgent way to nerd out about food in general and medieval cuisine in particular. Let me know what you think of it!
> 
> My grateful thanks to my betas and editors, Descarada (check her work, she writes amazing stories) without whom I probably wouldn't have found the strength to push through my insecurities and who helped with clearing my mind on some parts that were hard for me, and Liz, who polished this fic so it's actually readable and encouraged me through it. Thank you both so much.
> 
> Thanks to Naomi and Rosa too, who listened to me whine about food and characters alike, I <3 you both.
> 
> On with it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He arrives at the keep at the end of summer, like every year, and like every year there's only silence to greet him. The doors of Kaer Morhen are heavy, the joints rusted and creaky, the halls already cold as if the sun had not had the time to warm the stones of the walls. Vesemir leaves his cart in the courtyard, next to the main entrance, and leaves his mare to trot around and nibble on the sparse weeds that have grown on the ground. It's not enough, but he needs time and every year the Killer seems more difficult to vanquish. Vesemir wonders what will happen when he just can't climb it anymore, when his years will be too many. He's old, even for a Witcher, and if he only takes easy contracts these days and only for a season he thinks it's because his pups still need him, still need the security that is coming home for winter, and therefore he can't die on a job yet. Yet. The day will come, Vesemir knows, when he will be too slow, or too tired, or when his right shoulder will ache too much to wield his sword with enough strength. Still, it hasn't come yet, and Vesemir rejoices in this fact even if the sheer size of the work he still has to do is tiring as fuck. 

First things first, he cleans the stable and settles his horse. Everything is exactly like he left it when he departed, so the task is quickly done and he can turn his attention to the rest. 

The cart is heavy to move alone towards the kitchen entrance on the side of the yard, and his shoulders ache something fierce, but he goes on anyway. The awning over the big door is wide enough to cover the cart and its contents and protect it for the night. With a sigh, the old wolf enters the dark and silent keep, not bothering to light any torch or fire on the way, and goes to nurse his pains in his room full of furs and books and the good wine he keeps in there so the pups won't steal it.

\--- 

There is so much to do, like every year. Vesemir cleans the cellars, throwing away some moldy cheese and forgotten vegetables that have created life on their own. 

Once that's done he empties the cart: the meats in the cold room under the mountain, the barley and the oats on the top shelves away from the humidity, the veggies and fruits below for easy access. 

Geralt has sent word that he'll come with friends this year. Vesemir has no idea how Geralt managed to make friends if he's being honest, but there's a warm feeling in his chest when he thinks about it. His pups are a lonely lot, traipsing across the continent mostly in solitude. In his days, before Kaer Morhen and the other Witchers’ schools were destroyed, being a Witcher was not so lonesome; you met people on the path, traveled together for a bit, exchanged information, reveled in contacts that weren't polluted by fear or rejection. Now, though, his pups can travel all year without meeting another Witcher, without letting the mask they all wear to deal with people slip for even one second. They all deal badly with that, Vesemir knows: Lambert is angry, Geralt tries to suppress his emotions as much as he can, and Eskel tries to fade in the background. When they're here though, in the winters when they all come home, they let the mask slip and they are just themselves, which is not always better in a large sense but warms Vesemir's heart all the same. 

He thinks about them while he cuts and salts the cabbages,the carrots, and the onions. He sets the vegetables aside to be dealt in a few hours and goes to retrieve the half pork he bought from the last village in the valley, and sets to prepare it too. It's a long process, dealing with that amount of meat. He cures the belly and the hams, ready to be dried in a few days. He chops the rest, setting the fat aside, and uses the entrails to make sausages. Maybe he'll smoke some of them once the smoking chimney is clean enough and the fires of the kitchen are going strong. In a few days, then, when he'll be done with the vegetables and the cured and dried fish.

He wonders who the guests will be. He hopes they will be capable enough to help: the east wall is in serious need of repairs and every set of hands will be welcome. 

The vegetables are properly wilted, so he squeezes some water out of them before putting them in jars. He checks that they are covered enough with their juices, then seals the jars and leaves them outside, leaning on the south wall, soaking in most of the already fading heat of summer. They'll be ready when the kids come.

\---

The smell coming from the smoking meat makes Vesemir salivate, and he spares a moment to think that his boys are never grateful enough for the fact that he doesn't just eat it all by himself.

\---

The last round trip to the village is the one for the honey, flavor-rich of the end of summer, the butter, and the apples. Cider, mead and apple vinegar are his last fermentations to do before the weather is too cold to allow the work of time on the produce. 

The wind comes up as he touches the ground on the yard, already biting. The sun comes up later every day and Vesemir needs more and more torches even during the day to work. 

He sets a list of things the boys will do during winter: there's the east wall and the cleaning, of course, but some furs need to be changed, and the roof needs some work too: at the first rain there are puddles in the great hall and the humidity coming up from the floor gives the entire keep a smell that's nearly overwhelming for the old wolf’s keen nose. By chance the rooms and the kitchen seem to be unaffected, probably because of the fires Veremir stokes all day long to warm the stones before the winter sets in.

\---

The cellars are as ready as they can be: there's grain, krauts, mead, ale, wine, and nuts -lots of them-. There are still fresh apples, beets, turnips, leeks, and carrots. Several wheels of cheese wait in the more airy part of the room. The meats are back in the cold room, salted and smoked, as is the fish that received the same treatment. The lard and the salted butter are in there too, in tight little jars with cork lids. In the kitchen are the spices, a collection that always makes Vesemir proud: he doesn't just have the basics, like cinnamon and nutmeg, but his travels and connections allow him to have mustard seeds, mace, and even saffron. His collection of spices is probably the most valuable thing in the whole keep and Vesemir always takes great care in keeping it stocked, even if he needs to go without a good meal for a couple of weeks in the summer. 

The first snow comes fast, almost two moons before yuletide. Vesemir spends his days hunting for meat and furs alike, enough to eat himself and something to salt still. The animals are the fattest at this time of year and the jerky he obtains by curing the meat of the majestic deer he just got is going to feed the pups once they leave again. 

\---

Vesemir sometimes stops to think when his life ceased to revolve around the Path and started to revolve around the pups, but he can't put a finger on a precise moment. Maybe he was always like that? Maybe it was when all the others died? Maybe he's just fulfilling his destiny, by being the father his pups have never had, by being the lighthouse in the storm, the rock where they can rest. He surely hopes to be all those things, hopes that the care he puts into this tomb of a house that was never meant to be a home and into feeding his pups can help him atone for all the kids dead under his watch, for the ones he sent on the Path maybe too early, maybe too stupid. Nothing he can do to change the past, except hoping for the future to be better. What a strange thing, to cling to hope like that after three hundred years.

\--- 

Vesemir sees him climb the mountain in the morning and, without hurry, puts together a simple meal for his first son to arrive: some bread, cheese, dried fruits, and some preserved onions on a plate, the typical meal he offers him every year. He leaves it on the table, covered by a cloth, and goes about his day. 

Eskel arrives when the sun is setting, his big frame made bigger by the furs of his heavy winter coat. He gets down from Scorpion and the two men hug tightly, big hands patting on shoulders and tentative smiles on each face.

"It's good to be home, Vesemir. What's for dinner?"

#    
  


\---

-In the next chapters this addendum will be in the end notes-

Sauerkraut is one of the easiest (and most delicious) ways to learn about fermentation. 

To make krauts you'll need cabbage, salt, jars, and time. The ideal jars (which are not the ones Vesemir is working with here because glass was very rare in the middle ages) are glass jars with an airtight lid (like that), but screw capped ones work too.

I use a proportion of 3% salt (1kg cabbage = 30g salt), but any proportion between 1 to 5 is good (more can prevent fermentation, less does not prevent molding). If possible use organic salt and untreated, coarse grey salt (the whitening agents in the salt act like preservers and kill the bacteria that create the fermentation). 

Cut your cabbage into shreds, fine as you want. Salt it and massage the salt in the vegetable, then let it rest uncovered for 2 or 3 hours. After that time press it to extract as much liquid as you can (do not throw it away!) and put it in the jars, pressed tightly. Cover with the remaining juice, close the lid (if it's a screw cap leave it slightly unscrewed) and set the jars in a place with as stable temperature as possible (the ideal is 20°C-ish). The Sauerkraut is ready to consume after about a month and can keep for at least one year if you store it in a cool and dark place. 

It can be eaten raw (that's the best way to enjoy the many benefits of fermented food) or cooked, with some smoked sausages, in pierogis, or soups. The same fermentation process can be used to ferment a lot of other vegetables like carrots, turnips, onions, even green leaves: the only thing that changes is the fermentation time and the use of brine instead of just salt (tip for the brine: use bottle or filtered water, because tap water contains chlorine which is a antibacterial agent and bacterias are what you're trying to breed!). 

For more information:

<https://youtu.be/mUwC7bTjLkQ>

<https://youtu.be/snxb_PSe3Ps>

<https://youtu.be/ZghX4Mrg7kw>

  
  


I have no idea if this experiment of a fic will interest anyone, but it's mostly a self-indulgent way to nerd out about food in general and medieval cuisine in particular. Let me know what you think of it!


	2. Eskel

There are things for which there is no time on the Path, not even when one stops at an inn, or spends his evenings alone in the woods. One of them, one of those Eskel cherishes the most, is making bread. In the winter, at Kaer Morhen, Eskel loves to make bread. It clears his mind as much as meditation does, teaches him again and again the value of time and patience and care, and it's delicious. 

Vesemir has already prepared the sourdough, as he does every year, and it is wonderful like every year: fluffy and soft, with a sharp scent and a beautiful aroma of home and calm and food. Vesemir must have helped it with a bit of honey, the vague scent of flowers still present in the background. 

Making bread takes time, and time is a thing Eskel has in spades during the down season. There’s only him and Vesemir in the keep at the moment, no major work can be done, so he sleeps, mends his clothes and armor, and makes bread. 

Before going to bed he freshens up the sourdough with equal amounts of flour and water. The flour is coarse, as it always is, and the pure smell of grain rises from the little ball of dough as he works it. The water of Kaer Morhen is one of the purest in the continent and he should know because on the Path he drinks whatever water is available and it usually tastes like shit and mud. The water of the mountains, however, tastes like snow and purity, cleanliness and life. The bread always tastes better when it’s made with good water. Even the porridge for breakfast tastes better in Kaer Morhen than it does on the road, and porridge is not a thing Eskel would define as tasty.

The oats have soaked all night, the porridge is dense and filling, and Eskel livens it up with honey and nuts and a pinch of cinnamon. When he’s done with his food and his watered-down ale he goes to check on his sourdough, finding it all puffy, cracks on its surface as if the air was pushing to get out. Eskel smiles, nodding to himself.

“Is it how you like it, pup?”

“Just perfect, Vesemir, look at this beauty,” he answers to the old wolf, lifting the bowl to show the living dough to his instructor. Vesemir checks it out, a small smile on his usually stern face, half-hidden behind his mustache. He nods, claps Eskel on the shoulder, and leaves him to it. 

The flour and the water and the sourdough come together slowly, with measured movements. Too much flour and the dough would be too dry, too much water and the dough would be too sticky. A bit of salt, for the taste, even if the shit’s expensive as fuck: it’s the first bread of the winter and Eskel wants it to taste good. 

Then it’s the time to knead, and it’s Eskel’s favorite moment. He lets his body do the work while his mind runs free, wondering what to expect from the season. Will both of his brothers be there this year? Vesemir said Geralt will come with guests, and Eskel is curious, albeit a little wary. It’s been decades since they had guests at the keep who were not Witchers, and even those are a rare sight and not always welcome. Eskel has some ideas about who might come, about who Geralt is tied with. Will it be the sorceress, the one he bound himself with in a fantastic bout of stupidity? Or the Child Surprise he still hasn’t had the gall to talk to Vesemir about? Or will it be the bard, the one who follows him like a lost puppy since he was little more than a baby? Yes, Eskel knows about them all, and Vesemir doesn’t. Vesemir isn’t the one with whom Geralt talks, late at night, after one too many cups of moonshine. Vesemir isn’t the guardian of Geralt’s secrets, the ones he only whispers in the dark, when the light can’t make them shine and reveal the truth underneath the words he’s saying. 

Eskel is a bit jealous of Geralt, of course he is. Geralt might think he’s been fucked over by Destiny, but he made his own choices in the end, his own mistakes, and still, he has more acquaintances, or even friends, than Eskel ever had. How’s it possible, with how prickly and brooding and silent he is, is a mystery. Maybe it’s mostly because he’s handsome, or because really Destiny has chosen him as a hero for her story. Eskel, on the other hand, was chosen by Destiny to have a good laugh, but he doesn’t care that much these days, especially when the dough in his hands becomes soft and pliant, when he feels it give under his palms, folds it again and again until it just feels right. 

It took him a long time before he understood when _right_ is. It took loaves of bread not risen enough, loaves of bread too dense inside, breads with a too fine crust, breads that crumbled as soon as they were open. As for most skills he learned in his life, it took time and dedication and repetition but, unlike most of his other skills, his failures weren’t punished by harsh words and harsher bruises, only by disappointment from himself and gratitude from his family. Eskel thinks it may be a better way of learning.

When the dough is just right he leaves it be, not far away from the kitchen fire, the one that never goes out. The kitchen is the only place that’s really warm in the winter, the big chimney always roaring with flames and embers carefully arranged to be useful whenever they’re needed. The kitchen is the heart of the keep and has been since the sack of Kaer Morhen: before that the fires were burning in all the rooms and halls of the keep, and the people who lived there made the stone walls warm from the inside. Eskel can’t say he misses how it was before, though. Can’t say he misses the screams, and the smell of blood and the cots pushed together at night. The warmth and the people are missed, not the purpose of the keep in the mountains. 

\---

Lambert arrives that afternoon, the last remnant of red just dyeing the sky for a few minutes still. He looks tired and cranky, but that’s pretty normal for Lambert at the end of the season. Eskel embraces his brother even if Lambert tries to duck, hugging him tightly to prevent him from running away. He relents only when Lambert hugs him back, and leaves him and Vesemir to their ritual bickering to check on his dough. 

It’s beautiful. All risen and smooth, still pushing against its confines. With utmost care, Eskel shifts it from the wicker bowl to the high edged cast iron pan, cuts a cross on it, puts on the lid, and suspends it on the fire, where the flames are still high but are wavering, ready to leave space for more embers. Eskel would love to have a proper oven, like they have in the villages, one that burns hot and keeps all the heat inside, but sadly the one that stood on the other side of the courtyard, in front of the kitchen door, has been destroyed by time and carelessness. Maybe he should ask Vesemir if he can build it again. He thinks about it every year and still hasn’t done it. 

\---

Kaer Morhen has no water clock, and the sun in the mountains is a fleeting thing on the best of days and can’t be trusted much to tell the time. The magical thing about bread, however, is how it talks to you to say it’s ready. 

There’s the smell at first, of course. It builds and intensifies and soon it fills all the first floor of the keep, despite the drafts. There’s nothing like it, according to Eskel, nothing that says home like the smell of freshly baked bread. 

Then there are the sounds, the cracks and the air being released underneath the cast iron lid. Eskel listens to them and when they start to fade he takes the pan away from the embers and turns it out on to the large wooden table in the center of the room. The bread falls easily, high and fragrant, the crust falling on the hard wood with a crispy sound. This is the hardest moment, the moment where the bread is ready but needs to set and Eskel can’t tear a piece of it yet. 

A bit of patience still. Luckily it’s one of his best traits.

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funny thing: of all of my experiments with fermentation sourdough is one of the few I never got right. In theory, you can raise ferments in a mix of flour and water, refreshing it every day, in about a month; my sourdoughs always die before that, maybe because, like flowers, they need more attention than what I am capable of.
> 
> I do my bread, pizza dough, focaccia dough, always with the same proportion: for 1 kg of flour, 600 g of water. I always look for a strong flour with more than 10g of proteins for 100g of flour, but the more the better. The protein content is the thing that will help create the gluten, the proteic web that allows the bread to rise and trap the carbonic acid, the result of the fermentation, 
> 
> I never measure my yeast, I use more or less depending on the time I have to raise my dough: more yeast means less time, but a less easy to digest bread. I like to make it in the evening and allow it to ferment in the fridge all night, then make it rise in the morning for a few hours and bake it at the beginning of the afternoon. Making bread takes time, but it’s incredibly rewarding. 
> 
> For more information:
> 
> <https://youtu.be/jJpIzr2sCDE>
> 
> <https://youtu.be/oidnwPIeqsI>


	3. Lambert

He hates this fucking place, he really does. He hates the Path even more though, so Lambert will take the respite for the winter before going through the shitty world again. No sneering fucks, no frightened barmaids, no spit in his ale: that’s as much comfort as Lambert needs. 

Sure, there are drills in the morning and the damn east wall in the afternoon, and Eskel decided this one, of all winters, would be the one when he rebuilds the fucking oven - as if his bread wasn’t good enough as it is - but even with Vesemir’s breath on his neck for his dagger’s figures and Eskel’s chatter about poetry of all things, it’s still better than being out there. 

The bed is, if not soft, at least warm. The ale is not the best on the continent but it’s free. The food is good, even if Lambert doesn’t care that much about food: it’s nice to eat something different than small game burnt on a stick anyway. He eats so much rabbit and squirrel and pheasant during the year on the path he's almost sick of the scent of roasted meat.

Every winter Vesemir insists everyone takes turns in the kitchen, which is always fucking embarrassing because Lambert still doesn’t know how to cook and cares too little to learn. Luckily he caught one or two things in the last fifty years, so when it’s him cooking everybody knows what they’re eating. 

“Let me guess, pottage tonight?”

“Fuck off, Eskel.”

Eskel laughs.

It’s still early in the winter and the vegetables are still mostly fresh; there will be no pottage in two months, just borscht with withered beets and salted cabbage. Right now, however, there are still leeks and carrots and turnips and yes, maybe Lambert doesn’t care much about food but it makes him think about his mother so he’ll cook the fucking soup and never tell anyone why. Everybody has secrets. 

On the far side of the hearth, where the embers are more subdued, there’s a big pot where Vesemir keeps his broth. It never leaves the fire, always restocked with water and bones and vegetable scraps, always gently boiling, ready to be drunk or used; the younger Witcher never told anyone , but the smell of broth is the one he associates with winters the most. Not the scent of his brothers or Vesemir, not the smell of Eskel's bread or the moonshine they keep just for those cold months, but the slow cooking brown liquid always bubbling away on the fire. Lambert leaves it be for the moment and cuts a large slice of smoked bacon, then chops it in to smaller pieces. The pot for the pottage is already warming and the sound of the bacon as it sizzles is nice. Once the fat has rendered Lambert adds the chopped vegetables -leeks, onions, carrots, turnips, cabbage, parsnip, everything he can put his hands on, the broth and three big handfuls of barley. A little bit of salt when Vesemir isn't looking and ten grains of pepper. There, it’s done. It’ll be ready for dinner and Lambert doesn’t have to think about it anymore. 

He wants to leave the kitchen, leave the smells of the bacon and the onions and the leeks that always drag him down memory lane, which he hates even more than the Path - and ain’t that something - but Eskel’s here with his needle and thread and a shirt that has seen too many years and too many fights, and Vesemir is muttering about how many guests Geralt will bring and how can he prepare the rooms if he doesn’t know, and the idea of being alone in his room that’s a lot colder than the kitchen doesn’t seem like the best one at the moment. 

He goes to his room to retrieve some of his clothing that is in pressing need of mending and, soon, the three of them are soaking in the warmth of the fire and the smell of the meal, silent except for the rare curse when one or the other uses the needle to pierce their finger instead of the fabric. 

Sewing is a repetitive action, something Lambert has been doing all his life: he rarely has enough money to buy new clothes, so repairing the ones he has is fundamental. Like every person who doesn’t own much Lambert takes good fucking care of what he has, from underclothes to gambesons, from his hosen to his winter cloak. None of it is fancy, and most of it is permanently stained with blood and dirt, but it keeps him covered and warm and that’s all that he asks of it.

Vesemir, who went to check the path from the battlements, comes back and lights the torches, immersing the kitchen in a soft, golden light. “Four of them,” he grumbles, “four! What did Geralt think, that the keep became an inn all of a sudden?” 

Neither Lambert nor Eskel answer to the old wolf, but they exchange a mischievous glance and a slight smirk graces the scarred side of Eskel’s lips; Lambert doesn’t know who the three guests are exactly, but he feels like Eskel does and that doesn't surprise him: the two of them have been thick as thieves all Lambert's life. 

He just hopes none of them are mages: he doesn’t like mages and he especially doesn’t like mages in Kaer Morhen. Magic users other than Witchers shouldn’t be allowed in the keep, lest they start to think of a way to start the trials again. Lambert will kill anyone who tries. 

“They’ll arrive tomorrow. I’ll need help to prepare the rooms. Three guests! I hope they come with supplies, I can’t feed that many people for the whole winter,” Vesemir continues, muttering to himself, while Lambert goes to check on his soup. He adds a bit more broth because the barley is sticking to the bottom of the pot, then moves it to the left of the fire, where there are only embers to keep it warm.

The rest of the meal is quickly put together: some cheese, Eskel’s bread, ale. Good food doesn’t have to be as complicated as they think it does in the courts all over the Continent, where nobles eat shit covered in gold and praise the cook anyway.

The pottage smokes in the bowls; there are beads of fat on the surface and the chunks of bacon are floating on the dense liquid, the barley and the vegetables having soaked up most of the broth. The smell is delicious and the taste is smoky and salty and rich, richer than the soups he eats at the taverns all around the Continent, where they put only the saddest scraps of meat and barely enough barley to thicken the broth. His pottage is not a watered-down, thin, poor meal: it's hearty and flavourful, it warms the belly and leaves him full. It's what every meal should be: sweet from the vegetables and salty from the meat, filling and fat and delicious and yes, Eskel can take the piss all he wants, but Lambert thinks that, should he eat this every day, he would be a happy man. Witcher. Whatever. Fuck.

\---

Geralt and his guests arrive late in the morning. There's a fucking _kid_ , with light blonde hair under her hood. There's a man with blue eyes and a _lute_. And there's a fucking _mage_. Lambert storms to his room as soon as they're down from their horses, so he doesn't give in to the temptation of crushing Geralt's nose with his fist.

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pottage is, basically, a vegetable soup. There are infinite recipes for soups and soups that have no name and recipe: as my husband's grandmother used to say "you take what you have and you add water", which was not really helpful when I was trying to make "her" recipe for my husband. Whatever.
> 
> Barley, spelt and wheat were the grain base of European cuisine for centuries, long before the rice was introduced from Asia and corn from America. 
> 
> This recipe here is very simple: you can use bacon or not (replace the fat with butter or oil), whatever vegetables you have available, broth or water, and any cereal you like. It's ready in 20/40 minutes, depending on the cooking time of the cereal. It's good and filling and warm. 
> 
> A (very) slightly more precise recipe is the "Zuppa di orzo e legumi", soup with barley and legumes:
> 
> In a pot fry in fat (pancetta or oil) chopped onions, leeks, carrots, and celery. Add the legumes (beans, lentils, whatever, you can mix too), water, and cook until the beans are cooked (it can take time). You can add canned tomatoes or tomato concentrate too. Once the beans are cooked add the barley and cook for 20 minutes more. Serve with olive oil and a good crush of black pepper.
> 
> As you see I have the same relation with quantities as my husband's grandmother had with what kind of veggies go in the pot. Vagueness is a way of cooking.


	4. Jaskier

It's not weird, Jaskier keeps telling himself. You've been invited, he adds. You're pulling your weight, he repeats, because the little voice in his head that keeps repeating that he should be anywhere but here, a human in a castle full of demigods, is very annoying and persistent.

He's been in Kaer Morhen for one week now, and he still hasn’t got a really good feel of the place. Or, probably, he still hasn’t got a good feel of his place here.  
He knows why he's here, so that's something; there's a bounty on his head apparently, courtesy of Nilfgaard, and Geralt was feeling guilty for some reason or other. He usually doesn't need a lot of reasons for that.  
He's also here to help with Ciri, because the girl who lost everything and found a Witcher still needs to learn how to do... well, almost everything. He can't help with swords or wibbly wobbly timey wimey magical stuff, but he can give Geralt and Yennefer a bit of respite when he teaches the girl history, geography, and languages. He smuggles in as many pieces of information he can about being sneaky while being in plain sight too, and how to bargain for better prices or war negotiations, and court etiquette and how to fuck it without anyone noticing. All very useful things, thank you very much.

So he teaches in the afternoons and helps around the keep in the mornings. Vesemir took one look at him and deemed him unworthy of working the hard jobs - of course he did - so he's on cleaning duty pretty much all the time, which is absolutely not how he pictured his winter going.  
His plans were simple enough: get to Oxenfurt somehow and finish drowning his sorrows in cheap wine and smooth thighs until his coin died down, then beg the board for that professor job he didn't take twenty years ago to travel with Geralt, become a stuffy and tired old man who thinks the new generation will destroy music and forget everything about the Witcher.

Geralt found him in Ard Carraigh. He was with Yennefer and the princess and Jaskier still did not have enough self-preservation to not follow as soon as the Witcher whistled at him like a lost puppy.

He got smarter, though, after the mountain. He doesn't talk too much, doesn't strum his lute all the time, doesn't give advice when it's not asked, and mostly stays out of Geralt's hair and, by association, everyone else’s.

At this time of day, when the Witchers and Ciri are out in the courtyard despite the biting cold that's settling on the keep and Yennefer's still asleep, Jaskier's refuge is the kitchen, to warm his bones near the biggest fire - the one in his room doesn't burn all the time - before everyone starts to come in and he needs to leave the premises so as not to annoy anyone.  
It's also his turn to cook dinner, and the meal he's been thinking about needs a bit of time.

The knife is as sharp as every other blade in a Witcher’s life, and cuts through the meat like butter. Jaskier minces a piece of salted pork belly and a bigger one of venison, the meat coming from yesterday’s hunt. Once the mince is ready, as fine as it’ll ever get - which is not that much, but he isn’t a cook, is he now - he adds some wine, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander, cumin and pepper, all the spices ground together in the mortar. As an afterthought he adds some raisins and dried apricots for sweetness and a splash of verjus for sharpness. He lets the preparation rest in the cold room beneath the mountain where all the meats are stocked, then takes advantage of the fact that nobody has reclaimed the kitchen yet to prepare his pastry.

As he mixes the flour with the lard and a bit of water he thinks of the young cook who taught him to make it, years ago, during one of the periods he spent in a court away from Geralt. He had a fun time with her, he remembers. She had a large bosom and an even larger bottom, the kind a man can really grasp and.. well. No sense thinking about it now. Not that thinking about it would change anything: Jaskier’s libido has never been so low in his life, dragged down by an unrequited love reaching its tipping point and feelings of inadequacy the likes of which Jaskier has never felt before.

Just as the pastry comes together under his hands Yennefer comes in, because of course of all the people it would be her. It’s not that he hates her, per se. She’s gorgeous, and smart, and powerful, and so much more than him. He just feels like he has nothing to say to her, or to anyone. Somewhere along the last months he just gave up on verbal sparring as he gave up on sparring altogether; he just lets himself be dragged by currents that are so much more powerful than him and he’s thankful for every day he goes to bed still alive.

He nods to her, putting the pastry into a bowl, covering it with a waxed cloth and starting to leave to put it outside in the cold, when she interrupts him with a hand on his arm. He looks at it, then at her, then at her hand again. She lets him go.

“Scared of me, bard? You scurry away every time I enter a room, I didn’t peg you for a coward. A fool, yes, but a coward? That’s new.”

Words bubble in his mouth wanting to come out. Fuck you, he wants to say. You can do better, he wants to tell her, if you really wanted to hurt me you should know where to aim. Instead he swallows and tries a little smile, knowing it's something not too bright, something dull, something that even feels sad to him.

“I don’t want to impose. Have a good morning, Yennefer,” he says, and leaves.

He doesn't really understand the concern on her face as he goes, but he doesn’t even try. If there's something the last year has made clear is that he can't be trusted to interpret facial expressions that much, lest he mistakes fondness for annoyance and friendship for mere tolerance.

He leaves the pastry out in the cold and goes to his room to practice his lute, door firmly closed so the sound travels as little as possible.

\---

The shadows are getting longer already, the days shorter and shorter as they approach Yuletide, when Jaskier leaves his room. He needs to find Ciri, he has a history lesson planned, but he needs to finish his pie first. Unfortunately the kitchen is not as empty as he would have hoped, the big fire attracts most of the guests of the keep; Eskel and Vesemir are working on a deer pelt, Ciri and Yennefer are drinking something hot and making faces at the smell from the Witchers' work. Jaskier is unbothered by the smell, having spent innumerable evenings with Geralt doing the same thing, for selling or for using himself. He tries to be as silent as possible while he goes to retrieve his dough and his filling, settling on a corner of the big table to fill the two iron tins with a thin layer of crust, a hefty helping of filling, then another layer of crust. He tunes out the voices and the sounds of the kitchen, working fast and vaguely humming to himself.

The real cooks usually score the pastry, making it very pretty with leaves and flowers and sometimes birds and animals, but Jaskier is not a real cook; he just hopes his blank crust will be edible. He does a little chimney on top of his pies to avoid explosions, then sets to go out to the big oven Eskel and Lambert have finished three days ago - the only reason why Jaskier has been able to make pies of all things -, but he's stopped by a chirpy voice.

"Jask, are we going to have lessons today?"

Jaskier startles, ripped out from his idle thoughts, and luckily manages to not drop the tins. When he turns toward the kitchen again there are four people looking at him, the Witchers with a frowny expression from which he want to run badly, Ciri with her open, smiling and innocent expression and Yennefer with a raised eyebrow that could look curious but is probably just an expression of contempt.

“Oh, yes, sure thing my dear, I was just going to set dinner to cook and then I’m all yours. Why don’t you stoke the fire in your room so we can be warm while doing it?” he smiles, trying his best to ignore the attention of the other adults and focusing on his pupil.

“Oh, no, it’s always cold in there unless I stay under the furs, can’t we do it here?”

Here. In the kitchen. Where people pass, stay, talk, hear. Jaskier wants to say no, he really does, but it is cold in the bedrooms and nobody’s ever learned anything while being uncomfortable. He takes a big breath, schools his smile once again, and nods. Ciri whoops, which seems like an excessive reaction to Jaskier, unless it means he has forced the girl to freeze in the last week by making her work elsewhere and now the guilt is almost suffocating him. He runs outside to the oven, the biting cold of the young night calming his cheeks from overheating.

\---

Dinner is probably the hardest moment of the day. Everybody eats together, huddled in the kitchen, and Jaskier finds himself between Lambert - who eats like a savage and Jaskier prefers having him near than opposite - and Ciri, who’s retelling her daily lesson to a very interested table, as if most of the people eating here tonight weren’t there at the time of the facts. What a strange life for a human bard, to be so near to people who made history, lived it and will make it again.

The pies are nice and golden and everyone seems to enjoy them, with a side of carrots and a bowl of broth. Jaskier is pretty satisfied with himself and eats slowly, savouring the different tastes and textures of the meats and the pastry.

Geralt, who’s sitting almost opposite from him, between Yennefer and Eskel, hums around a morsel.

“You really nailed the filling, bard,” he says, and he probably doesn't even remember, and he probably thinks it’s an offhand comment, a compliment even, but Jaskier is on the river of a lake near Rinde again and he can’t breathe. He fakes a smile, excuses himself and leaves, a bunch of bewildered faces behind him he doesn’t even see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pies, meat pies in particular, are delicious and still a feature in many culinary cultures, especially in northern europe.
> 
> Here Jaskier makes the pastry with lard instead of suet or butter, as is more common these days. Oil can also be used, but pastries made with oil usually don’t have the same flakiness that can be achieved with animal fats (probably coconut butter could be a good substitute, but it’s a bit too flavourful for me in this instance).
> 
> Pie pastry needs to be cold and very shortly worked: opposite of bread we don’t want the glutinic web to form, because we want a flaky pastry, not an elastic one.
> 
> Filling can be anything: meats or vegetables, fruits or cheese, recipes for pie fillings are endless. Here Jaskier is making a meat pie with fat and lean meats and spices, a very simple but flavourful one; dried fruits were also used a lot in medieval cuisine, sweet and sour being one of the major flavour profiles at the time.
> 
> Some fillings are encased already cooked, others are put in the pastry raw, like in Jaskier’s recipe; these different recipes still exist to this day.
> 
> The chimney on top of the lid of the pastry is essential to prevent any rupture, because as the filling cooks it’s going to expand before retracting again; we now use a little cone of baking sheet to keep it open. It can also be used, after cooking, to fill the void left by the loss of volume with broth jelly, like in the French Paté en croute.
> 
> There are plenty of recipes online for meat pies of all kinds, including medieval ones, but I couldn’t find one that really talked to my heart xD so I’ll let you find what inspires you and I’ll gladly discuss recipes with you!


	5. Yennefer

Yennefer is bored out of her mind. She would like to be anywhere else in the world right now, except Ciri is here, and Nilfgaard is looking for them, and Kaer Morhen is, indisputably, the safest place where they all can be. 

Still, she’s bored. Winter is definitely setting in, the light hours few and far between, the snow falling almost constantly until the yard is covered in it, enough that even the Witchers stay inside to do their morning drills. The library is filled with bestiaries and Witchers’ journals, things in which she doesn’t have any interest whatsoever. 

The people... 

Well, there’s Ciri, who has become Yennefer’s favorite person in less than two hours after Geralt and the kid found her, still completely depleted, after Sodden. She’s fierce and smart and powerful, and yet she needs guidance and affection and love, all things Yennefer has to give in buckets, all things Yennefer wanted to give so badly she can now admit she tried some pretty foolish things.

There’s Geralt, with whom a tentative friendship is starting to blossom, if anything for the sake of the girl. She hasn’t forgiven him for ripping her choice, her freedom, her liberty to make even bad decisions. She hasn’t forgiven him for tying her to him with a chain that can’t be broken, in a relationship that can’t be trusted. But maybe, maybe, if Geralt is a pawn of Destiny as everything seems to suggest, maybe this bond is not to him but to Ciri. Maybe it’s Destiny’s way to give her the child she’s always wanted. And maybe she can be at least polite with Geralt, if not friendly yet. It helps that they seem to not feel the waves of lust that have always brought them together anymore, even if that makes the winter even more boring. It helps even more that he’s _good_ with Ciri, really good, in the taciturn, repressed way of his; he never raises his voice, never raises his _hand_ , an endless pit of patience when she prattles about nothing and everything, when she messes up her footwork for the tenth time in a row, when she wakes up from a nightmare again. She never would have thought Geralt to be good at it, at fatherhood, but he didn’t think she would be good at it either, so, they’re even.

There are the other Witchers, who don’t trust her. She can see it in their eyes, how they sharpen and go cold as soon as she comes near. Vesemir and Eskel are polite enough, though, and while she doesn’t feel welcome she doesn’t feel threatened either. Lambert, however, still hasn’t uttered a word in her presence. She knows he can talk, has listened to his never ending flow of curses and insults when he spars or works, but he avoids her as much as he can and she thinks it better to leave it alone. 

And then there’s the Bard, who is weird. Very, very weird. When they found him in Ard Carraigh almost a month ago - what he did in Ard Carraigh of all places is a mystery in itself - he was drunk out of his mind and looked like it had been his normal state for quite some time. Geralt whistled and he followed like the nice pet he is, but something was wrong. Something is wrong. The bard won’t talk. During the journey to the keep he walked in silence, replying shortly to whatever question Ciri had for him. In the evenings he didn’t touch his lute, preferring to have better conversations with Ciri about nothing and everything, from poisonous plants to hunting seasons, the royal families of the Continent or the rudiments of Nilfgaardian. He, however, didn’t speak to either her or Geralt; he was polite enough, said hello and thank you and good night, but he didn’t react to her jabs and didn’t try to recount amazing adventures to Geralt. Geralt didn’t seem to notice, or maybe he was relieved by the silence, but Yennefer knew it wasn’t normal. She knew the bard well enough - six years of meeting again and again will do that - to know that his normal state was loud, boisterous, histrionic, excessive, not meek and silent. 

Once they arrived at the keep the bard didn’t improve but got worse: with an entire castle to hide he disappears for hours on end, seemingly avoiding everyone except for Ciri in the afternoons. It’s weird. 

Yennefer is probably spending too much time analyzing Jaskier’s behaviour, she knows, but it’s not like she has anything else to _do_. Well, it’s her turn in the kitchen, so she could be doing that, but to be honest - which she is almost only in the safety of her own thoughts - she doesn’t know how to cook. Never learned, never saw the point: she was not allowed to cook as a kid - barely allowed to eat, as a fact -, she was fed in Aretuza, then in Aedirn, then she always found people “eager” to do it for her. Here, though, she feels as if she should have learned at least a bit, because even Jaskier, one of the more useless people on the Continent, can pull out a pie out of his ass and even make it good, and she can’t. She never even thought about it, before, she never needed to, but now it feels like something's missing and, well, Yennefer doesn't like to feel like she's _missing_. 

She could try, but that would mean admitting that she can't at the moment, so she entertains the idea no longer than a moment. What she can do, however, is make herself a cup of candied ginger infusion and sit at the big table of the kitchen, savouring the heat.

“Aren’t you supposed to be cooking?” says Geralt as he comes in, an enormous cauldron full of freezing water in his hands. Someone’s going to do laundry, it seems.

“Ah, yes. I am,” she replies, stirring the cup of hot water.

“Yen.” Gods, he sounds so disappointed when he says her name like that, it grates on her nerves.

“I’m not cooking, Geralt, because I’m sparing all of you a poisoning. I will, however, provide dinner for tonight,” because she might have become spoiled, yes, but she’s not _rude_. Geralt scoffs, suspending the cauldron to one of the hooks above the hearth to warm up. “Anyway, what’s up with the bard?” she asks, hiding her honestly curious expression under the rim of her cup. Geralt grunts. It’s always so nice to talk to him, she doesn’t know how Jaskier did it for twenty years and then some.

“I’m not Jaskier, Geralt, I can’t translate your grunting into actual sentences.”

“I don’t know what’s up with him.”

“Have you talked to him?”

He looks at her as if she’s the insane person in the room.

“Does he look like he wants to talk, Yen?”

“No, which is weird, wouldn't you agree?”

Geralt grunts again. It may sound like an agreement, but Yennefer is not betting on that. 

“Why wasn’t he with you anyway? I thought you two came as a package deal, I was surprised when we had to _look for him_.” She’s fishing. Of course she’s fishing. She’s bored and curious and Jaskier is being weird and Geralt is the only adult in the keep who actually talks to her sometimes, so.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he grumbles, a pinch between his eyebrows. Like that’s going to stop her.

“What did he do, make an actual move on you and you finally managed to tell him to fuck off?” she laughs, but her laugh dies in her throat quickly at the stricken expression of the Witcher. Well, stricken might be pushing it, it’s _Geralt_ , but still. “Did he?”

“Hmm.” 

“Geralt, what did _you_ do?”

“I told him to fuck off,” he shrugs, as if that makes sense. From what Yennefer knows Geralt told the bard to fuck off for years, never for it to stick. 

“You must have done a good job of it,” she answers, studying his expressions closely. A flinch. Guilt, maybe?

“Maybe too good,” he whispers, then crosses the kitchen to leave.

“You can apologize, you ass!” she shouts at his retreating back, not hearing even a grunt in response.

Well. This should make winter more interesting, at last. 

\---

“I’m not eating that,” Lambert says as soon as he comes into the Great Hall, where the banquet Yennefer conjured is laid out on a bigger table than the one in the kitchen. Despite the roaring fire the room is still cold from drafts, but it was the only place large enough to accomodate the meal. There are soups, and a roasted piglet, cod with a verjus sauce, a stuffed goose with brown sauce, fresh fruits and berries, enough wine to make even a Witcher drunk. She’s exhausted from it, but pretty proud.

“You are, and you are saying thanks too,” replies Vesemir, hitting Lambert on the back of his head none too gently, “we never eat like this, so be grateful, pup.”

Lambert scoffs, his distrust clear on his face. “I’m not eating what the mage magicked,” he says, the word mage like a slur behind his teeth, “she could poison us all.”

Yennefer sees Ciri rolling her eyes, and Eskel looking at the table with something akin to wonder, Geralt having already filled up his plate. Jaskier, as usual, is silent, but he has at least good manners enough to wait for everyone before starting to stuff his face.

“T’s good, Lambert, shut the fuck up and eat,” Geralt says with his mouth full and, by the gods, why did she find him attractive exactly? Lambert sits, eyeing the dishes warily, but he serves himself a bowl of the soup and, after a thorough sniff, drinks it. Yennefer considers this a win, and even more when everyone thanks her at the end of the meal. She probably will sleep for two days after that, still tired from Sodden as she is, but the joy in Ciri’s eyes as she eats things she hasn’t eaten in months makes it all worthwhile.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, for _reasons_ there isn’t a recipe included here xD
> 
> Medieval banquets were large, complicated affairs, with very elaborate dishes. There are some resources on the internet if you look for them, but high end cooking (whatever the historical period) is not really my jam, so I just went with a bit of imagination and I’ll see you next chapter for some more real and not magical cooking!


	6. Cirilla

“Jas, could you help me?” Cirilla asks, entering the bard’s room after her drills without so much as a knock. It’s pointless anyway, he never answers when anyone knocks. 

“Of course, princess, what would you like to do?” Jaskier answers, turning towards her from the side of the bed where he’s sitting, apparently doing nothing but stare at the wall. She hasn’t known him for long, but she thinks it’s not exactly normal behavior. She doesn’t say anything, but this behavior is getting old very fast, like when her grandma had a fight with Eist and they didn’t talk for two weeks, getting on everyone’s nerves. Is it too much to ask for family to get along? Cirilla doesn’t think so.

“I would like to make honeycakes, but… I don’t know how?” she asks, a little bashful. Jaskier smiles lightly. 

“You should ask Eskel, he’s the one who’s good with baked goods,” he replies, but she shakes her head in turn. “I don’t want to do it with Eskel, Jas, I want you to help me.” I want you to come out of your room, she doesn’t say. Jaskier nods and stands, and Cirilla beams at him.

\---

“Take that bowl, yes, the big one. We’re going to make the dough first…”

Cirilla didn’t know Jaskier knew how to make honeycakes, but he apparently does, so she follows his directions. Flour, almond meal, beer, salt, and honey first, then a piece of sourdough she politely asked Eskel if she could take, and she kneads, and kneads, and kneads for so long she thinks she’d rather do drills with a sword because it would hurt her arms less.

“Why are you sad, Jas?” she asks as she kneads, feeling like it’s been hours even if it’s probably only been a few minutes. She’s not exactly subtle, but first of all, she’s twelve, she’s allowed to not be subtle, and second, it’s been weeks of this hiding and sadness and not talking to anyone but her and she’s just tired of this bunch of grown-ups doing nothing to solve this situation. 

Jaskier lets out a startled sound that could resemble a laugh if laughs were black and bitter.

“I’m not sad, little one. We’re almost there with the dough,” he adds, poking it with a finger and seeming not quite pleased enough with it. “Keep going a bit longer and then I’ll relieve you.”

“If you’re not sad, what are you? You never talk to anyone-”

“Oh, don’t worry, people don’t really like me talking-”

“-and you hide in your room all the time, and I’ve seen your lute but I’ve never seen you play it-”

“-I’m not that good, it’s better this way.” 

Jaskier practically manhandles her farther along the table and takes her place kneading the dough. Cirilla wipes her hands in a damp cloth, the sticky dough clinging to her fingers, and she watches for a moment how Jaskier kneads with force and weight and almost anger.

“Why are you lying to me? You said you wouldn’t,” she asks, her voice trembling a bit in disappointment.

He did, one of the first nights they spent on the road together, when she asked about her parents because Geralt didn’t want to talk about it and she asked him to not lie like everyone always did to her and he said “I wouldn’t lie to you, princess, I never will”, but he’s lying right now, she can feel it. 

Jaskier makes a broken sound deep in his throat and keeps working on the dough with even more strength, his whole body moving with it.

“I shouldn’t be here, Ciri,” he says, very quietly, and she probably would have missed it if she wasn’t looking closely at his face.

“Of course you should, it’s to keep you safe. We’re all here to keep us safe,” she replies, because that’s the truth. Jaskier brushes his eyes with the cuff of his shirt that he rolled up to help her.

“I’m here to keep you safe, yes,” and Cirilla doesn’t understand the point of the clarification: Jaskier is tracked by Nilfgaard as much as her, Geralt and Yennefer, that’s why they’re _all_ here. She frowns.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing, princess. I’m glad to be here with you. Look, the dough is ready when it’s elastic like that, see?” She does see, but her mind is elsewhere right now. “We’re going to let it rise for a few hours, then we’ll bake them and fill them with honey.” Jaskier puts the dough in the bowl again, then covers it with a damp cloth and puts it near the hearth but not too much, right next to the big bowl with the bread dough Eskel did earlier this morning. Once that’s done he pats her lightly on the shoulder and leaves without another word. 

\---

Cirilla waits in the kitchen. She drinks a ginger infusion with Yennefer when she wakes up, talking to her about their oncoming lessons. She helps Vesemir with dinner, cutting vegetables and meat for a pot roast that smells delicious, sweet like dried apricots and bitter like ale. She helps Eskel make soap from wood ash lye and lard, laughing when Lambert comes in to tell Eskel not to put “weird shit in it like last time” and Eskel grumbling “language, asshole” in response. 

When the dough has risen enough - and Eskel confirms - she goes to look for Jaskier, finding him, unsurprisingly, again in his room. This time he is playing his lute though, and Cirilla waits just behind the door, listening. He plays beautifully and he sings even better, his strong voice breaking sometimes against the words of the sad song he’s singing; she doesn’t know why he doesn’t do it more often, or in front of the others. She waits until the song is done, then knocks this time, then comes in.

“Eskel says the dough is looking good, Jas.”

“Oh, oh! Well, splendid, let’s make the cakes then, shall we?” he replies, getting up, and if his eyes look a little red-rimmed she kindly doesn’t point it out.

\---

They have separated the dough in twenty little balls, then made them rise again while they were talking about the geography of the Continent; Cirilla already knows her maps, thank you very much, but Jaskier makes it interesting by adding anecdotes for every realm or city, and even some for little villages. Most are about Geralt, about a monster he killed or people he saved, and there are _so many stories_ Cirilla wonders how long they traveled together and why the bard seems always a bit melancholic when he tells them. 

Geralt comes in at one point and Jaskier stops in the middle of a sentence, looking at Geralt then at Cirilla, as if in doubt whether continue or not; Cirilla sees Geralt sigh and leave the kitchen, while Jaskier sags for a moment then resumes his story without quite the same enthusiasm.

When the little breads have risen they brave the biting cold, covered in furs, to put them in the oven next to Eskel’s breads. Jaskier shoos her inside while he stays out to check on the cakes, and she crosses Eskel on her way in. She feels she waits a longer time than needed for Jaskier to come in but, when he does, there’s a little smile on his lips, one different than the others, maybe a little more honest.

“Now, princess, we cut a little chimney in our cakes, like that...” they do, the cakes still hot to the touch, steam coming out from where they cut the crust, “then we are going to fill them with melted butter and honey, as much honey as we can…” Jaskier says, a twinkle in his eyes like he’s enjoying the thought of honey as much as her. 

As they cool down the cakes soak up the butter and the honey and they put some in again, and again, until the bottom of the cakes becomes sticky and the crust glints with melted butter. They both laugh as they wrestle to prevent the other from taking one, promising to wait until the morning to have a taste for breakfast.

\---

The kitchen is strangely full, despite the early hour; usually, it’s only her and Geralt for breakfast this early, ready for her fighting lessons, but today there are Lambert and Eskel, Vesemir, Jaskier, and even Yennefer makes an appearance. They drink warm cider and eat the honeycakes, everybody ending with sticky fingers and lips, eyes crinkling with the treat of sugary goodness, and Cirilla thinks about Cintra, and the honeycakes her grandmother loved, and how Eist always told her to not eat too much of them while sending word to the kitchen to make more. She could make them for her, now, and the thought of it makes her eyes spill a little. She rubs her sticky hand on them and nobody seems to notice, everybody smiling and laughing, Yen clearly faking annoyance and trying to clean her hand on Jaskier’s doublet, and Jaskier lets her. Cirilla smiles a secret smile and finishes her treat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honey cakes are the recipe I actually tried for this fic... twice, because the first batch wasn’t how I wanted them.
> 
> This is the [recipe](http://www.innatthecrossroads.com/honeycakes/) I followed (the first one), with some exceptions: 
> 
>   * the almond meal is not necessary; it doesn’t add much in terms of taste and tends to make a heavier dough, so I left it out for my second batch;
>   * I didn’t use any sugar in the dough, substituting it with honey;
>   * I added, as Jaskier does, honey AND butter at the end to soak up the buns.
> 

> 
> My thoughts: if you like honey, those are delicious. I used a fairly neutral honey (Acacia) but one can use some more flavorful honey, like lavender, chestnut, orange blossoms, or the classic flowers. I like my honey fairly mild when cooking, so I went with acacia.
> 
> The difficulty in this recipe is in the dough, which needs to be worked a long time and risen accordingly: the center of the buns needs to be fluffy and airy, so it can absorb the butter and the honey and soak in it; in it’s too dense the honey just stays in the chimney and the buns are just heavy pieces of bread with a bit of honey in the center, which is not the point.
> 
> I really liked this recipe. I’m not a big fan of dessert or sweets, so I liked that this treat was very simple and the sweetness of the honey is so special it’s not overwhelming. It’s a good breakfast or tea break food.


	7. Geralt

The knife slices smoothly against the meat, separating it from the bones, then cutting it into big chunks. There is a lot of meat to cut from the deer he and Lambert hunted yesterday, in the snow and the cold of the mountain, a welcome breather from the stifling atmosphere of the keep. Some of it will be salted and smoked to be preserved, some of it will be used for dinner. 

The repetitive movements, the focus needed to not cut himself, the silence of the empty kitchen, the crackling of the wood in the fire, the smell of food help Geralt to feel a little more balanced, a little more in control. It’s early morning, so early not even Vesemir is awake yet, but Geralt is already working because he _can’t sleep_. As always when something in his life bothers him in a profound way sleep eludes him, night after night, already almost two months of flimsy meditation and light sleep interrupted by nightmares, and the something that is bothering him sleeps three doors further from his. 

Jaskier.

Geralt is not an idiot, whatever Yennefer or Lambert like to say, and he knows he messed up on the mountain, he just doesn’t know how to mend the mess. Jaskier avoids him like the plague, which he knows he deserves but makes it a lot harder to make up with the man. Not that he would know what to say, anyway, because “I’m sorry I said stupid shit” doesn’t seem to cut it. Jaskier smells like sadness and anger and fear, three scents Geralt would never have associated with him before meeting him again in Ard Carraigh. Jaskier has always smelt like joy and lust and sunshine, has always talked far too much, has always made noise. Now Geralt has trouble recognizing the silent, discreet man the bard has become. It’s unsettling. 

The only moments when Jaskier looks a little more like himself are when he’s with Ciri. Not the boisterous persona he puts on for the crowds or his own amusement, no, but he reveals the clever mind behind the silks, the patient professor he could have been had he chosen a different path than Geralt’s, the cunning noble at ease with any company, no matter how high born. Geralt could listen to those lessons for hours, even if he needs to hide behind a wall or stand in front of a door to do it.

When he’s done with butchering the deer he puts the meat into the cold room to be dealt with later - probably by Vesemir who still thinks his almost century-old pupils can’t handle jerky correctly - except for the pieces he needs to cook dinner with. He takes a pause to eat some porridge because his stomach starts rumbling, even if he hates the stuff, and washes the taste with a piece of cured meat and a salted egg. 

He’s about to start on the onions for the stew when Eskel shows up, hair still mussed from sleep, and he starts on his bread like every morning. Geralt cuts four big onions in slices, peels ten cloves of garlic, and cuts the meat into big chunks. 

“I talked to your bard the other day.” Eskel’s deep voice resounds in the empty room, his tone light as if he were discussing the weather, which he is not. Geralt knows that tone of voice, it’s the one that says he’s not going to be able to run from this conversation. His brother has always been good at making him talk. 

“Not my bard,” he answers, because he’s not going to fold just like that.

“Clearly not anymore, no,” Eskel adds, because he’s an accomplished fighter and knows how to stab where it hurts. Geralt flinches. “It took me a month and a half to have half a conversation with the guy when you always told me he could talk to walls if nobody else was available. You know why?”

“No.” He doesn’t, he honestly doesn’t. That Jaskier is angry at him is understandable. That Jaskier doesn’t want to talk to him is understandable. Why is Jaskier avoiding everyone else, though, is not something Geralt can understand.

“Well, he seems to be under the assumption that, since you hate him because he, and I quote here, ‘talks too much to say nothing, makes too much noise and shovels shit in your life’, we all hate him. He has apparently taken the decision of being, and I quote again, ‘as unobtrusive as possible’ so he doesn’t disturb us. Care to explain?”

The knife slips. The cut on the finger isn’t too deep, but as always fingers bleed a lot.

“Fuck.”

“Hmm.”

Geralt puts down the knife and presses a piece of cloth on the cut, waiting for it to stop bleeding.

“He said all of that?”

“Not all at the same time, some of it came up after a hefty dose of spirit last night,” Eskel shrugs, setting his dough aside and serving himself breakfast. “Want some ale?”

“Hmm.”

Eskel serves two tankards and sits opposite from where Geralt stands at the table, a bowl of porridge topped with honey and cinnamon in front of him.

“Talk, Geralt.”

“What do you want me to say.”

“Why haven’t you apologized yet? You said some shitty things to him.”

“I know.”

“So?”

“So, he doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“Of course he doesn’t.”

“Hmm.”

The cut has stopped bleeding, so Geralt starts cutting the meat again. 

“He’s still in love with you, you know.”

“He’s in love with everyone, doesn’t make me special,” Geralt grits through his teeth. He knows. He fucking knows. The knowledge just makes everything worse though, so he tries to not to think about it too much. 

He knew almost from the start because, again, he’s no idiot. Even if the bard hadn’t _reeked_ with it, there would have been the fact that he still followed him anywhere, that he managed to find him any time they were separated, the care and tenderness he put into tending to his wounds, the coin he shared, millions of trivial and grand gestures that made it so that even Geralt, not used to it, could pick up on the fact that the bard, in one way or another, loved him. 

Jaskier never acted on it, for whatever reason, and Geralt thought it best to maintain the status quo, afraid of the consequences of crossing the line. Friendship is a sort of love anyway and if Geralt spent the last ten years at least wanking while thinking about blue eyes, nobody needs to know. Well, nobody except maybe Eskel, who could find a job as an interrogator in any realm and make a lot more money than he does as a Witcher.

Jaskier was there, always there, a constant on a Path of uncertainties, unmovable like a tree, stable like a castle, and Geralt was so used to his steadiness he lashed out on the mountain, sure as he was that the bard would resist this as he resisted everything else. Well, there’s something as the last drop, apparently, even for Jaskier.

Eskel snorts at his reply, an unbelieving edge in his laugh. 

“Yeah, no.”

“Hmm.”

Geralt retrieves a big pot and puts the meat, onions, and garlic in it. A bit of salt, two big fists of black and white peppercorns, two spoonfuls of lard, and he covers it all with red wine, then settles it on the side of the hearth to cook quietly all day long at low heat.

“Talk to him, asshole.” Eskel’s look is pointed, as if he knows something Geralt doesn’t. Joke’s on him, because Geralt knows exactly what Eskel is saying with his eyes and not with his lips; he was the one rambling about the bard for the last twenty years, after all. 

Geralt grunts instead of answering. He wants to, fuck, he wants to, but expressing himself has never really been his strong suit. A few minutes later Geralt tries to let go of his frustration with his sword against Eskel’s, and the echo of their sparring wakes up the other inhabitants of the keep.

\---

The day passes and still, Geralt doesn’t find his words. 

He cuts more wood for the fires, he works on the deer’s pelt, he eavesdrops on Ciri’s lesson, he plays a game of Gwent with Lambert - and loses -, he listens to Yen’s tirade of the day about how to apologize - and discovers at the same time that apparently Jaskier has started to talk to her too, now, and that’s good, that’s good, that’s terrific, he hates it so much, to be the last one Jaskier still thinks he can’t talk to, that maybe he thinks Geralt meant what he said on the mountain, fuck, that maybe he doesn’t want to bother him, how could he fuck up twenty years of friendship so much -, he takes care of Roach, and finally it’s time for dinner.

He’s tired, hungry, and cranky, but he shoves everything aside as he serves the stew to his family. Big slices of bread cover the bottom of the plates and he spoons the meat and the sauce on it, letting it soak all the juices. The venison melts in the mouth, spicy from the peppers, sweet and sour from the wine, and Geralt, for a minute, relishes in the simple pleasure of a tasty meal, letting the conversations around him drown his thoughts. Suddenly there’s something new in the customary sounds of dinner: a little laugh, first, then a quip and an answering laugh from all around the table. Geralt lifts his eyes from his plate and, when they meet the pools of blue in front of him, Jaskier doesn’t look away right away. It might be nothing, but Geralt feels as if the door has been unlocked and now he just needs to push it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geralt’s recipe in this chapter is based on the Tuscan recipe “Peposo dell’impruneta”, which is a delicious wine-based braised dish, very easy to do. 
> 
> I’m going to leave the recipe to one of my favorite food youtube channels, [here](https://youtu.be/7qmt9rup6_I) (Chef John is awesome, funny, his recipes are always very clear and, as far as French and Italian cooking go, very thorough with sticking to the tradition).
> 
> Geralt, like me, can’t cook without onions, so that’s why we added it in this recipe: they add sweetness and I love them.
> 
> You can cook it on the stove like in the video or in the oven at 170°C in a dutch oven.
> 
> This dish is so easy and so tasty, I really recommend you to try it and, if you do, let me know!


	8. Vesemir

The last days of winter are always a blur of activity. 

After months of almost hibernation, the first smell of thaw seems to wake up the pups and their guests, everyone eager and anxious to come back to the Path or, for some, their normal life. 

Vesemir tries to keep a semblance of order, tries to organize his guests to do things logically, but the cub is complaining to her father - she started calling him that a little after Yuletide - about the size of her pack, supported by the bard, of course.

“Geralt, love, Ciri’s right, you can’t ask her to leave with only two changes of clothes! What are you, a heathen?”

“Just because you need twenty doublets-”

“Oh, the outrage of the lie! I only have four, dear heart, and one of them is barely worthy to be called that-”

“-she needs to understand that life on the Path is not always comfortable-”

“That’s not about comfort, Geralt, it’s about fashion, but you couldn’t see fashion if she bit you in the nose!”

Lambert is settling a fairly unsettling amount of weapons in his pack, leaving too little space for the food Vesemir and Eskel are preparing for everyone. 

There is the salted and cured meat, long slivers tied in tight bundles: venison, boar, some pork that has miraculously survived the winter. Some wheels of hard cheese, matured even more during the last months. Bread, enough at least to get to the bottom of the mountain. Vesemir would love to see his pups leave with more than that in their packs, but the horses might be strong, it doesn’t make them invincible. 

Yennefer comes into the kitchen, seemingly unperturbed by the hustle, and serves herself a cup of mead.

“I don’t know, I think I preferred it when he was not talking,” she says, and Eskel snorts. Vesemir feels a slight pull to his lips but keeps it in check; he can appreciate the jab, but he wildly prefers the bard as he is now, lively and chatty and entirely too much for a keep where silence has reigned for decades and, because of that, exactly what the castle needed. 

It took almost two months for Geralt to get his shit together, but he finally did it and then Vesemir had an unoccupied room and some unpleasing smells to deal with, together with a pup that smiled liberally for the first time since the Trials and made the scent of lust and love and the endless chatter worthy. 

Since then Kaer Morhen thawed before the world around it, even Lambert unable to resist the current: no more semi-silent dinners filled with awkwardness, no more avoiding one another in the hallways. The kitchen became what it was always meant to be, the heart and the hearth, the place where everyone comes together to cook and eat, to play cards and pass the time and, in one unfortunate occasion, to be caught in the act of trying to defile the table. Vesemir did not let that one stand. 

They’ll leave tomorrow at first light, all of them, leaving the old wolf alone in his keep again. They did good this winter, the eastern wall can resist another ten years of northern winds, the oven is functioning again, all the bedrooms have been insulated, some of the tapestry repaired by little hands that do not like to be idle and have a secret talent for embroidery. 

The sorceress did her best too, even if Vesemir could sense how little magic she had to give when she first arrived. She helped him in the still room and the library, her knowledge precious to organize things left by Kaer Morhen’s mages. She’s the reason Geralt and Jaskier are bickering right now because she conjured various sets of clothes for her daughter - Cirilla started to call her that almost a month ago -, to “get her ready for every occasion”. And if the Witchers’ packs are more profound than they’ve ever been, well, nobody noticed but Vesemir. 

There are still potions to be distributed and furs to be rolled, but Vesemir needs to take care of dinner now. 

The last of the sauerkraut on the bottom of a cauldron, covered in the last sausages and slices of bacon, some browned venison, onions, raisins, some wine over it all, and the pantry will be almost empty tomorrow. He doesn’t need much anyway, he’ll have the cheese and the pickles and the rabbits he’s going to hunt until summer comes and he leaves too. The cauldron goes to bubble happily over the fire, the salty and tart scent of the cabbage mixing beautifully with the fatness of the meats. He puts some spices in it too: pepper, juniper, mustard seeds. 

Around him, the rush continues. Lambert shouts at Eskel because apparently:

“I know you’ve hidden it, asshole, give it back!”

“Why would I take your razor, for fuck’s sake.”

“Because I take care of my blades a lot better than you and you know it!”

“Fuck you, dickhead, my blades are fine, and anyway you don’t even clean shave, why do you need a sharp razor…”

“Because I like it and I want it and you give it back to me!!”

“Hello gentlemen, what are we fighting about today?”

(That’s the bard)

“Eskel doesn’t want to give me my razor back.”

“Oh, Oh! Yes, well, hmm, razors, yes? May it be the razor someone left in the hot springs next to the mirror, yes? Ah, see, very sharp that razor, I almost cut myself-”

“Bard, my razor.”

“Yes, yes, sure, in a moment. Geralt!”

Vesemir smiles. He soaks up the energy they’re dispersing and hoards it for the next, lonely months, his mind already thinking about what to prepare for next winter, when they’ll all come home. Because they will all be coming home in half a year, and he will feed them and shelter them and love them through his actions, through clean sheets and soft furs, sweet mead and bitter ale, fatty bacon and tart cabbage. They’re his family, and he can’t wait for them to be home again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took some liberties with the last dish, as it is a mix between Alsatian Choucroute (or Choucroute garnie), a dish that’s officially a bit younger than what I was aiming for, and Polish Bigos, which are dishes with many similarities.
> 
> It’s a slow-cooked dish made with sauerkrauts, white wine or beer, spices, and a whole bunch of cured meats: ham, sausages, cured pork shoulder, bacon, kielbasa, whatever, and fresh meats for the Bigos version. The Choucroute is usually served with dijon mustard and both are good dishes to prepare for large tables, usually eaten on family reunions. 
> 
> I didn’t find a suitable video recipe I liked enough for Choucroute BUT I found one for [Bigos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqg_cO4s8ik) (again thanks to Chef John). Both are very delicious, hearty winter meals and I hope you’ll try them!
> 
> Thank you for following me through this culinary journey filled with feelings, I hope you liked it. 
> 
> Check out my other Geraskier fics:
> 
> \- [A piper at the gates of dawn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23411083/chapters/56107210); canon universe, ep 6 fix-it, rated E. Geralt finds Jaskier one year and a half after the mountain.
> 
> \- the [Muse 'verse](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1752481): Modern setting, from hook-up to lovers, rated E, Geralt wears kilts, angst with a happy ending.
> 
> \- [Callygraphy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25365418): 5k ficwip challenge, College/University, rated E, inspired by art, fluff
> 
> \- [ There was only one bed and it was uncomfortable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26283094): 5+1 Crack, rated E, 4k
> 
> \- [Au ralenti je soulève les interdits](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26212666/chapters/63794215): series of porny one-shots based on twitter prompts
> 
> Don’t hesitate to leave comments and you can come and talk about Geraskier and food on my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ArtanisNaanie) too!

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my other Witcher fics:
> 
> \- [A piper at the gates of dawn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23411083/chapters/56107210); canon universe, ep 6 fix-it, rated E, <9k. Geralt finds Jaskier one year and a half after the mountain.  
> \- the [Muse 'verse](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1752481): Modern setting, from hook-up to lovers, rated E, Geralt wears kilts, angst with a happy ending. <20k  
> \- [Calligraphy](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25365418): 5k ficwip challenge, College/University, rated E, inspired by art, fluff, 5k  
> \- [ There was only one bed and it was uncomfortable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26283094): 5+1 Crack, rated E, 4k  
> \- [Wish you were here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26579083); canon universe, porn without plot, rated E, 5k. Geralt walks in on Jaskier.. again.  
> \- [Of food, friendship and apologies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27954674); canon universe, ep 6 fix-it, rated G, 2k, not or pre slash. Food is a love language.  
> \- [As we lie here in our bed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28527864): canon universe, porn without plot, somnophilia prompt for the Sugar and Spice Witcher Bingo, rated E, 1k  
> \- [Black in front of my eyes, bark against my back](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28616832): canon universe, porn without plot, outdoor, clothed sex, rated E, <1k  
> \- [Things that bump in the night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28617060): pre canon universe, porn without plot, Eskel/Geralt, Kaer Morhen, rated E, <1k  
> \- [I quite like seeing you all tied up](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28617300): canon universe, porn without plot, Geraskier, soft bondage, rated E, <1k  
>   
> And you can come yell at me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/ArtanisNaanie) too!


End file.
